-------------------------SHEILA'S
BACK FENCE---------------------
Tired, at your wit's end, or just need a pick-me-up? Come meet
me
at my back fence, where we can talk parenting and housework with
some common sense for a change!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Vol. 1, Number
2
March 2003
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Author of ***To Love, Honor and
Vacuum***, coming soon!
And Reality Check, in the Belleville Intelligencer and the
Penticton Herald.
All material Copyright 2003, Sheila
Wray Gregoire
This newsletter is distributed by
subscription only. If you want
to unsubscribe, instructions are at the bottom of this ezine.
***Know of someone else who would
like this ezine? Feel free
to pass it along, but please keep it in its entirety!***********
----------------------------------------------------------------
IN THIS ISSUE
----------------------------------------------------------------
1. FEATURE ARTICLE:
Till Kids Do Us Part: Staying
Together When Children
Pull you Apart
2. FAMILY TIPS:
Make Family Dinners Fun!
3. BOOK CORNER:
New books I love!
4. KIDS SAY THE FUNNIEST
THINGS!
5. YOU DESERVE A BREAK!
6. ANNOUNCEMENTS
7. PARENT TO PARENT:
How do you get your kids to sleep
through the night?
8. REALITY CHECK
9. Subscribe/Unsubscribe
Information
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
*********FEATURE ARTICLE*********:
Till Kids Do Us Part
Twenty-two weeks into my second pregnancy, my husband Keith and
I were devastated to learn that the little boy I was carrying
had a serious heart defect. In the midst of our turmoil, one
specialist grimly remarked, "I should warn you that
half of all
couples in this situation separate within a year."
Thankfully,
we were able to lean on each other during this most difficult
time in our marriage, allowing us to grow closer, even as
we watched Christopher slip away.
Most of you won't have to endure the
death of one of your
children, but you may suffer other heartbreaks that can take
their toll on your relationship. Maybe you have an
uncontrollable
four-year-old, or a teenager who is constantly threatening to
run away. Even so-called "normal" children can cause
stress with
their constant demands.
It's hardly surprising that children
add tension to a marriage.
They encapsulate our identity, our dreams, and our futures. When
something goes wrong with our kids, we feel like our whole world
is falling apart. A strong marriage can provide a cushion
through
these challenges, but a marriage that is floundering only
compounds grief. To ensure that your relationship withstands
whatever pressure it may face, try to nurture it in the
following
four ways:
1. Forgive Yourself
Guilt and parenthood seem to go hand
in hand. We feel guilty for
things over which we have no control, and we repeatedly kick
ourselves for things we feel we should have handled better. Yet
self-recrimination can cause us to build walls of silence around
ourselves, isolating us from the love we so desperately need.
Joanne Cacciatore-Garard, founder of
the group Mothers in
Sympathy and Support for parents who have lost children, says
she
has yet to meet a bereaved parent who doesn't feel guilt-even if
it seems completely irrational to everyone else. After her
daughter was stillborn, she herself felt overwhelmed by guilt,
as if her own body had somehow "caused" her daughter's
death,
even though logically it was no fault of her own. Likewise, when
we're going through a crisis with our children, we're likely to
ruminate over how we could possibly have caused this.
When we feel guilty, though,
Cacciatore-Garard says, we can build
a wall of self-loathing around ourselves, cutting out our
partners and others that love us. To keep a strong relationship,
we need to tear down that wall. Guilt, though, is one of the
most
difficult emotions to eradicate because it often has no basis in
objective fact. Cacciatore-Garard has found that throwing her
energy into helping others turns something negative into
something positive, as does opening up in a supportive group or
with a supportive friend. Voicing guilty feelings seems to put
them in perspective and minimizes their ability to throw us
into despair.
Sometimes, though, we feel that we
can trace our children's
problems back to our actions. Maybe you worry that your child
wouldn't be so belligerent if you hadn't worked so much, or that
your baby wouldn't be so fussy if you hadn't given up nursing.
It's easy to second guess ourselves, but blaming ourselves does
nothing to help the situation now. Forgive yourself, and free
up your emotional energy to be there for those who need you.
2. Forgive Your
Spouse
Forgiving yourself allows you to stop ruminating on your own
problems and focus on your relationships. To maintain harmony in
your family, though, you must also forgive your partner. Anger
can be just as destructive to a relationship as feelings of
guilt.
My heart feels sick at some of the heartbreaking stories that
hit
the news. The father hits a patch of ice and his son is thrown
from the car. A little girl wanders from a family picnic and
drowns. And who can forget little Jessica McClure, who fell down
a well when her mother turned her back for a second. Such things
seem so difficult to forgive.
Usually the infraction is far more
mundane, such as the workaholic
husband who leaves his wife to deal with their children's
behavioral problems herself. Yet whatever the offense, you will
never be able to form a family that loves and supports
unconditionally if you remain angry. If your partner's
infraction
is one of deliberate abuse, you must first ensure that your
children are safe. But if abuse does not enter the picture,
forgiveness is the only route to peace.
Best of all, forgiveness has a side
effect that nothing else can
deliver: it brings a marvelous freedom to both parties. Your
partner is set free to parent, unencumbered by the need to
"make
amends", and you are free from the cycle of bitterness
which
demands a retribution which can never be paid. As speaker
Patricia Frances asserts, "unforgiveness is like drinking
poison
and expecting someone else to die." You may be protecting
your
need to be right, but you give up your only chance at freedom.
3. Show Love to Your
Partner
One of the hardest things to do when
you are exhausted, worried
about a child, or grieving is to focus on someone else. Yet
Marriage and Family Therapist John Walton has found that
relationships need constant nourishment, especially through
the hard times. One way you can do this, Walton says, is through
small acts of kindness. Even if you don't always feel love
towards your partner, if you can make the effort to demonstrate
it, you build goodwill in your relationship.
These acts of kindness don't have to
be elaborate, but they
must speak his or her language. I love backrubs, but my husband
would rather sit alone and read. If I rub his shoulders, I make
him feel more annoyed than appreciated. Ask your spouse what
makes him or her feel loved, and then try to do one or two of
these things a day.
4. Find Solutions
Now you're ready for the biggest
challenge of all: finding
agreement on how to handle the challenges your child poses.
While the previous three steps can be done even with an
uncooperative partner, this one requires more compromise.
When parents agree on a course of
action, whether it's about
discipline for a rebellious teenager, or about treatment options
for an ill child, life is much smoother than when parents do
not.
Yet what do you do when you reach an impasse about issues which
are so vitally important?
When Julie and Jim's son Matt began
exhibiting serious behavioral
problems, they disagreed on how to discipline him. Julie, who
grew
up in a loving home, believed she had more insight than Jim did,
whose parents were often distant and uncaring. "Sometimes I
would just shout to get my way, I was so sure I was right,"
Julie
told me. "But when nothing worked, we realized nobody had
all
the answers. Now we try to work things out together."
If you have talked until you're blue
in the face and you still
disagree, John Walton recommends finding a third party to help,
such as a minister or a counselor skilled in family therapy.
Above all, Walton says, don't just acquiesce without believing
in your heart that you are doing the right thing, or you risk
feeling angry and self-righteous later if things turn out badly.
Keep talking until both of you are at peace.
Though we may wish it, none of us
will have a storm-free life. And
storms involving children are among the worst we can face. A
strong
marriage is one of the best tools you have to help you through a
crisis, so dedicate yourself to preserving it at the beginning
of
difficult times. Then, when all is over, you know you will still
have each other.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
2. FAMILY TIME:
***Make Family
Dinners Fun***
Ask any parent their biggest
complaint, and invariably they'll
sigh and talk about how little time they have. How busy they
are. How nothing important ever seems to get done.
The truth is we are incredibly busy,
and we're getting steadily
busier. Life was not always like this! (it's something I talk
about in my book To Love, Honor and Vacuum!). But the simple
fact is, for many of us, work demands, homework, after school
activities, and simple errands eat up so much of our time that
the really important things, like spending time together and
making sure you stay attuned to each other, too easily fall
by the wayside.
That's why family dinners can be such
a wonderful opportunity
to connect as a family. But too many of us aren't taking
advantage of it! 40% of families eat dinner with the television
on, guaranteeing that conversation will be at a minimum!
But what do you do if your family
doesn't want to eat together?
Or if your family is used to eating and running? Try these tips:
1. Let each child have a special
night, perhaps once a month,
where they get to be "king" or "queen". Let
them sit at the head
of the table, and make them wear a homemade crown if they're
young, or the silliest hat you can find if they're older. Let
them choose the menu, serve themselves first, and choose what
you talk about. Don't make them clean up! Let every child
feel special occasionally, and they'll look forward to all
being together.
2. Ask your child two questions: what
was the best thing that
happened to you today, and what was the worst? Don't ask
"yes" and "no" questions, like "did you
have a good day?".
Ask something that will make them think.
3. Use dinners to plan vacations and
fun outings. Ask for
input. If the kids have something to be excited about,
they're more likely to want to stay!
4. Make it a rule that everyone has
to stay at the table
until everybody is finished. This shows that dinner isn't
about eating as much as it is about socializing. It may
be hard to do this if your family isn't used to it, but
stick to your guns and they'll soon enjoy it!
Do you have fun things you do to make
dinner at your
house enjoyable? Let me know and I'll post them here
next month!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
BOOK CORNER
When is it time to start reading to
kids? We started when our
kids were just babies. It was part of our evening routine. The
kids got to cuddle with Mommy in the rocking chair, they heard
my voice, and it helped to settle them down. My kids weren't
great sleepers, so having set routines helped in more ways than
one!
But reading to a baby helps them to
learn the language, helps
them to bond with you, and helps them to love books! What should
you read? You can start with nursery rhymes or things that have
rhythm. Mother Goose, Cat in the Hat, etc. are good choices.
Don't be upset if your child just
wants to chew the book, or
turns pages far faster than you can read them. They're
exploring,
and in time they'll listen to the whole thing.
Here are my suggestions for books for
babies. By the way, these
make excellent baby shower gifts, too! Everybody else will
bring clothes, so the new parents will really appreciate books!
1. Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings, Matthew
VanFleet. Lift up the
flap to discover funny looking iguanas, woolly sheep, or
scratchy sharks. Also learn your shapes, too! Our all time
favourite!
2. Baby Faces, Playskool. Babies love
looking at faces of other
babies. The Playskool one is the best we've found, but if you
can't get a hold of it, there are others to choose from.
3. The Napping House, Audrey Wood. A
simply beautiful book,
with rhythm gallore. It's wonderful!
4. Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise
Brown. It's over fifty years
old now, but it's still wonderful. Start by asking your child
to find the mouse. Then ask them to find the things listed
on each page. Then ask them to find all the "o's" once
they
learn their alphabet. This book will grow with them!
5. Have You Seen My Duckling? Nancy
Tafuri. A mother hunts
for her missing duckling. Ask your child to point to the
wandering duck on each page. Very few words, lots of
pictures, and lots of fun.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
KIDS SAY THE FUNNIEST
THINGS!
An anonymous mother from Austin,
Texas, reports on what
her children taught her:
1. A king size waterbed holds enough
water to fill a 2000 sq.
foot house 4 inches deep.
2. If you spray hair spray on dust
bunnies and run over them
with roller blades, they can ignite.
3. A 3 year-old's voice is louder
than 200 adults in a
crowded restaurant.
4. If you hook a dog leash over a
ceiling fan, the motor is
not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound boy wearing Batman
underwear and a superman cape. It is strong enough, however,
to spread paint on all four walls of a 20 by 20 foot room.
5. A six-year-old can start a fire
with a flint rock even
though a 36-year-old man says they can only do it in the movies.
6. A magnifying glass can start a
fire even on an overcast day.
7. Certain Legos will pass through
the digestive tract of a
four-year-old.
8. Super glue is forever.
9. No matter how much Jell-O you put
in a swimming pool, you
still can't walk on water.
10. Pool filters do not like Jell-O.
11. VCR's do not eject PB&J
sandwiches even though TV
commercials show they do.
12. You probably do not want to know
what that odor is.
13. Always look in the oven before
you turn it on.
14. Plastic toys do not like ovens.
15. The fire department in Austin has
a 5 minute response time.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
YOU DESERVE A BREAK!
Each month, I'll put some obscure
parenting fact here.
Here's this month's:
A recent study of different jobs and
the tasks each involved
found that the most depressing task was--get ready for it--
HOUSEWORK! Most of you probably aren't surprised.
It's never ending, it's never done,
and it's boring. Sure
you feel a sense of accomplishment after your floor's mopped,
but chances are your kid is already trailing crumbs on it as
you're putting away that bucket.
(This is why I wrote my book, by the
way. To help women feeling
overwhelmed by housework, childcare, and everything else).
The solution? Get a little organized,
and GIVE YOURSELF A
BREAK! Don't demand perfection, just strive for comfort. And let
the rest go.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Here's what's going on in my life:
1. My column, Reality Check, started
in Penticton!
2. My publisher for To Love, Honor
and Vacuum has hired a PR
agency to help market my book, and is flying me down to a book
expo in Orlando, Florida in July. Very exciting!
3. To Love, Honor and Vacuum should
be available by late June.
I'll let you know when it's out.
4. I've been invited to speak to 4
women's groups this spring,
as well as two conferences and one writer's conference. I'm
going
to be busy! If you have a group that needs a speaker, let me
know, too!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PARENT TO PARENT
QUESTION
Here was February's question:
******How do you keep up with your
laundry? How do you get
it all folded? How do you keep your socks in pairs? ***
The theme to the responses I got was
this:
**Fold your laundry right away, and
have some sort of a plan!**
Here are some of the suggestions:
1. Use a laundromat. This
necessitates getting all your laundry
in one place at one time, doing it, and then actually folding it
all at once. Then you don't have to worry about it, and it
doesn't pile up around your house. If you don't have enough
money for a washer or dryer, or enough room, then don't worry.
This may be just what you need to give you the push to get
organized!
2. Another reader suggested doing one
load of laundry every
morning no matter what. Carry your laundry basket to the washer,
put a load on, and empty the laundry that's in the dryer into
your basket and carry it back upstairs. Then fold it right away!
You only need to go down to the washer once, but if you do it
everyday, you're unlikely to have a backlog (unless you're
family's really huge!).
3. Finally, someone suggested having
kids match socks while
they're watching TV. It can be one of their weekly chores.
Keep a basket where all the unmatched socks go, and let the
kids get to it!
Here's our question for April:
**How do you get your kids to sleep through the night?**
Let me know, and I'll post your responses in next month's
newsletter!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
REALITY CHECK
Here's my favourite reality check
from February. This got a lot
of different responses, and I could divide these responses into
two camps: those who have teenage boys or who have been teenage
boys, and everyone else.
"Everyone else" was worried
that I was saying that girls were
partially responsible for being assaulted. This was certainly
not
my intention, I don't believe that at all, and if that's how it
came across, I'm sincerely sorry.
Those who had teenage boys, though,
were almost uniform in their
approval of what I said. Here's what they're thinking (and
indeed,
what I meant to convey): They know their kids are a rage of
hormones. But they don't necessarily want their boys having sex
(or if they do, they want them to be smart about it). They don't
want their kids preoccupied with it, either. They want their
kids
to do well in school, to work at jobs, to have friends, to
mature.
So when they see what some girls wear
today, they're ready to
faint dead away. How can their sons deal with this without
getting
sidetracked from everything else? So that's what I meant when I
wrote this, and I'm reprinting it here. I chose this one
because,
despite the people who didn't like it, it's generated the most
"fan" mail. See if you can follow what I meant:
Burqhas and Bra
Straps
Last month, eighteen women in
Afghanistan were allowed to take
their driver's tests. When reading the news account, what struck
me was not their amazing liberation, though, but the reason they
wanted to drive in the first place: to stop the unrelenting
sexual harassment as they walked down the street-get ready for
it-in their burqhas. Now I can't think of anything sexier than
that, can you? For all you know, she might have three eyes,
a warty nose and seventeen fingers under all that, but hubba
hubba!
In these societies, a woman is so
dangerous that she has to
be covered so as not to incite men's uncontrollable urges. Well,
obviously it's not working. Women evidently need more covering.
Perhaps
they could attach rods to their heads, from which they could
hang
curtains. They would be a six-foot square walking box, maybe
with a
periscope on top so they can see out. Would that halt the
temptation?
But as ridiculous as I think it is to blame women for men
lusting
after them, sometimes I wonder if we haven't gone too far in the
other direction. I remember as a teenager dressing without
giving
any thought to what effect it would have on hormone-raging
17-year-old
boys whose thoughts, approximately every 2.3 seconds, apparently
turn
to sex. My eyes were opened when I was married and Keith would
comment
favourably on some outfit I had once worn. I'd look at him in
amazement
and say, "But, darling, that made my knees look fat."
He'd look at me
equally bewildered and reply, "Honey, fat was the farthest
word from
my mind."
I have never been a teenage boy. I have never even played one on
TV.
But I'm married to someone who once was one, and in
conversations with
him and with other couples, all the men have said, without
exception,
"It is so hard to learn math when someone is sitting next
to you with
a low-cut top and a mini-skirt." And all of us women looked
at these
Neanderthals incredulously for thinking that way.
But apparently boys do think that way, no matter how pathetic we
women think that is. And girls imperil themselves when they
forget
that. I know older generations have been complaining about what
teenagers wear forever (Honey, that mammoth skin draws too much
attention to your cleavage), but perhaps we need to give this
some
consideration. We are asking an awful lot of teenage boys, while
asking
hardly anything of girls. When I was in high school, the height
of
social embarrassment was if your bra strap was showing. Today,
that's stylish, as if we really need to remind boys what's
underneath
our tops. Personally, I don't think most girls intend to be
sexually
provocative. I think they honestly just want to be
"pretty".
But if pretty now means jeans cut low enough around your hips
that
you can see the top of thong underwear, then maybe we need to
change
our definition.
It's not only clothes, though. In
California, a 17-year-old was recently
convicted of rape in the following case: A girl invited him and
his
friend into a private bedroom, where they proceeded to do some
pretty
grown-up things together. One boy completed the act and left.
The other
boy then commenced, but several minutes later the girl said,
"Um, I
think I should be going now". The judges decided this boy
was supposed
to interpret her comment as "stop now", and calmly
cease and desist.
He certainly should have. But he's a 17-year-old in the middle
of a
rather exciting act. We're putting girls in a lot of danger when
we
tell them that boys will always stop even if the engine's going;
that
it's never the girls' responsibility to stall that engine in the
first place. We're teaching our daughters to trust boys to stop,
even if our daughters dress unwisely, talk unwisely, and act
unwisely.
Maybe it's time dads-or other important males-sat down with
girls and
told them exactly what teenage boys are thinking. Burqhas are
evil,
but Britney Spears' fashion sense probably doesn't contribute
much to
the public good, either. Let's find a balance we can all live
with,
and then maybe math scores would finally start rising again.
